Alpha Xander's Undoing Chasing my Unknown Mate Back novel Chapter 105

Chapter 105

Chapter 105

Rory

The Academy didn’t look like the same place we had left behind.

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It loomed in the half–light like a husk of itself, stone blackened by smoke and windows shattered into jagged teeth. The banners that once hung proud along the entry had been torn away, only threads left snapping in the wind. Grass had pushed up through the cracks in the stone walk as if the earth itself had begun reclaiming it.

I paused at the gates, my wrists twitching against phantom chains. My whole body remembered the silence of the dungeon and the drip of water in the dark, and being here–back where it started–felt too much like a circle closing in.

Xander noticed. Of course he did. His hand brushed mine, fingers lingering just long enough to tether me without words.

“You don’t have to go in first,” he said quietly. His voice was rough, like Azrien’s growl lived under it.

“I do,” I replied, pushing past the ache in my throat. “This is for me.”

The others filed in behind us. Mona kept her blades loose in her hands, eyes darting everywhere like shadows were about to sprout teeth. Dhara’s pace never faltered, though her nose twitched, wary of the wrong kind of scent. Matt glanced at the roofline like he expected an arrow from every broken window.

But the place was deserted. A ghost town in stone.

My boots scuffed the same courtyard where, only weeks ago, students had laughed, fought, loved. Where the Solstice had cracked me open and spilled my secrets. Where Durnham had found the hinge in my chest and pulled.

The silence now was worse than screams.

Inside, the halls echoed with our footsteps. The scent of old incense still clung faintly to the walls, mixed with dust and smoke. Someone had tried to scrub away the ritual rings on the floor of the main atrium, but the stains were etched too deep into the stone. I swallowed hard, memory pressing sharp into my ribs.

Mona broke the quiet first. “Cozy,” she muttered, her voice thin. “Remind me why we came back to the haunted ruin instead of anywhere else on earth?”

“Because,” Dhara said simply, “if there’s a way to give Rory back what was stolen, it’s in here.”

Xander’s jaw clenched. “Or it’s with him.” He spat the word like a blade, eyes flicking toward the inner halls.

Professor Vallin.

The man who had drawn those runes. The man who had touched my mind without asking. The man who had been willing to gamble with my life for the sake of knowledge.

But also the man who had, in his own way, tried to save me.

11:58 Fri, Oct 3 M…

Chapter 105

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We found him where I half–expected him: in the library, among the stacks no fire had touched. He sat at the long table, candles guttering low around ledgers and scrolls. He looked thinner than I remembered, eyes hollow from sleepless nights, but his hands were steady as he turned a page.

He didn’t look up when we entered. “You took your time.”

Mona’s blade flashed half an inch from its sheath. “Careful with your words, professor.”

Xander didn’t bother hiding his growl. “If you knew she was alive this whole time-”

“I didn’t.” Vallin’s voice cut sharp, though still calm. His eyes finally lifted to me, not them. “But I hoped. And here you are.”

The air between us was heavy. My chest wanted to collapse in on itself, but I forced my spine straight. “He took them from me,” I said, no preamble, no softening. “Zerina. The bond. All of it. You saw what he did–you know what he stole. I want it back.”

Something flickered in Vallin’s expression, something almost like pity, though his voice stayed even. “It doesn’t work that way.”

My throat went tight. “You’re saying it’s gone?”

“I’m saying,” he said, folding his hands together, “that bonds and wolves are not threads you can simply knot again when cut. They are living things. Spirit, blood, soul. Once severed-”

“Don’t,” Xander snapped, voice low and lethal. “Don’t you finish that sentence.”

Vallin’s eyes slid back to me. “You feel something still, don’t you? A ghost. A pull.”

The phantom thread. The one that scraped through my chest like wire every time I thought of Xander. My nails bit my palms. “Yes.”

“That means the door isn’t closed,” he said softly. “But forcing it open is dangerous. Reckless. You’re fragile right now.”

“Fragile?” My laugh cracked like glass. “You think I survived Durnham’s dungeon, his chains, his games, only to break because you don’t trust me with my own wolf?”

“Because I don’t trust what might come through with her,” he countered, his calm sharp as steel. “Zerina is bound to you, yes. But Durnham tampered with more than a tether. The tear he pulled open left you vulnerable. If I attempt to restore it and the wrong thing answers-”

Xander slammed his fist on the table hard enough to rattle the ledgers. “Then you’ll stop it. That’s your job. That’s why we came back.”

Vallin didn’t flinch. “And if I can’t?”

The silence after that question scraped worse than the drip in the dungeon.

I felt everyone’s eyes shift to me. Xander’s rage, Mona’s skepticism, Matt’s quiet steadiness, Dhara’s unreadable calm. All of them waiting for me to either beg or break.

11:58 Fri, Oct 3 M…

Chapter 105

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Instead, I stepped forward, chains of memory dragging at my wrists. “If I don’t get them back, I’m already half–dead. You know that. You know what it means to live without your wolf.”

Vallin’s face tightened, just barely. That was answer enough.

“I’ll take the risk,” I said, voice rough but steady. “If it kills me, at least it’s my choice.”

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